All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(14)

“I have one rule for lunch. Everyone has to try a bite of everything. She won’t.”

Lisa disagreed with rules like that, but in her first week of teaching, there was no way to disagree with a thirty-year veteran like Mrs. Norton.

“When will you send her back to class?” Lisa said.

“After she tries a bite of everything.”

At 2:55 p.m., just before the release bell, Wavonna returned to class with a note from Mrs. Norton. Rather than try a bite of each item, she preferred to sit in the echoey cafeteria while the janitor cleaned.

PE was also a dead-end. While the other kids ran around, screaming and laughing, Wavonna sat on the bleachers and read. Take away her book and she would sit on the bleachers staring at nothing.

She was stubborn, but at least she was smart. Her reading was above grade level and she rarely scored less than 100 percent on her math worksheets. She was a problematic student, but she was less trouble than most.

Then the first cold of the season went through school, and Wavonna stayed out sick. Three days later, she returned to school with a severe-looking woman, who marched into the classroom and said, “Who’s the teacher here?”

“I’m Miss DeGrassi.”

“I am Valerie Quinn.” The woman was tall and slender, with brown hair, but this Mrs. Quinn didn’t stink or slur her words. She was dressed in a white turtleneck, white slacks, red pumps, and she wore her hair pulled back from her bare face.

“How often do you disinfect the desks?” Mrs. Quinn said.

“I’m sure the janitor does it regularly.”

“You’re sure? How are you sure? Do you see the janitor do it? Or do you just assume that he does it?”

Lisa started to say, “I trust that the janitor is doing his job,” but she never got to finish.

Later, when she told the story, she found there was no way to exaggerate it for more laughs.

“It has to be every day. Every day. Say it with me: the desks have to be disinfected every day. Children are germy. They are covered in germs. These, these, these sweet little angels—” At that point in the story, Lisa swept her arm around her audience, one finger pointed accusingly at them, always aware that she would never master Valerie Quinn’s contemptuous gesture. “—are disgusting disease factories. These little angels are going to the bathroom and not washing their hands. They are bringing their germs back to this classroom and smearing them over every surface.”

The diatribe lasted until the cafeteria lady sent Mr. Bunder, the PE teacher, to see why Lisa’s students were late to lunch. He found them in the thrall of Mrs. Quinn’s unrelenting account of their hygiene failures.

Mr. Bunder was able to convince her to come down to the front office, where she unloaded on the principal and the janitor and the school nurse, too. When it was over, Mr. Bunder sacrificed his planning hour to keep Lisa’s students in the gym, while Lisa went back to her room to recover. Alone, she sat at her desk and cried. When she lifted her head, she found Wavonna sitting on the bench under the coat rack, reading a book. She had been there all along, while her mother rampaged.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Lisa said. Without looking up, Wavonna nodded. It made Lisa wish there were something worth calling Child Protective Services over. A suspicious bruise, an appearance of malnutrition, anything to get that little girl away from her crazy mother.

Mr. Bunder’s take on the situation was slightly different. After having Wavy in his PE classes for two months, he suggested having a kid like that would make you bonkers. “Which came first? The crazy chicken or the crazy egg?” he said.

In November, things got better. Maybe it was the influence of Wavonna’s father, who started dropping her off and picking her up most days. That was the same time she started writing Wavy on her papers instead of Wavonna.

When the crazy mother and the Hell’s Angels father failed to show up for parent-teacher conferences, Lisa mailed a letter to the house. Then she called, but no one answered.

Finally, she did what she’d been too cowardly to do in the first place. At the end of the day, she walked Wavy out to where Mr. Quinn waited on his motorcycle, his hands resting on ape hanger handlebars. With his leather jacket hanging open, Lisa could see sweat stains under the arms of his greasy T-shirt. He was huge and meaty, and if Wavy hadn’t been there, Lisa might have backed down from her intention to confront him.

“Hi! I’m Miss DeGrassi. I’m Wavy’s teacher.”

He nodded.

“I was sorry we didn’t see you and Mrs. Quinn at open house, but I’d like to meet with you to talk about how Wavy’s doing. I sent a letter about conferences. Maybe you didn’t get it?”

“Uh, sorry,” he said.

“Maybe you could come in right now? It would only take a few minutes.”

He looked at Wavy, and Lisa had the weirdest feeling he was waiting for instructions. All the lights were on but nobody was home?

Wavy nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

In her classroom, Lisa kept two adult chairs for parent conferences, but even they seemed too small for him. As big as he was, he hardly seemed old enough to have an eight-year-old daughter, but Lisa had learned her lesson on that subject. Grandfathers who turned out to be fathers. A mother so young, Lisa mistook her for a student’s older sister. Mr. Quinn looked young, sitting across from her like a kid who’d been called to the principal’s office.